Naming a Little One
by Miyori999
Summary: Post Manga. As Inuyasha and Kagome begin choosing names for their child, the topic of several other character's names are discussed as well.
1. Sesshomaru

**Sesshomaru**

Inuyasha returned to his home as dusk was beginning to darken the sky. Kagome had already started the fire, but Inuyasha noticed she was no longer tending to it. She sat beside it with an odd expression—brows knit, but a slight smile on her lips. Inuyasha's eyes traveled down to the swell in her yukata, and the hand placed upon it.

"Kagome? Is everything alright?"

She turned her smile to him.

"Come here," she whispered. If he were human, he would never have caught the words. He cautiously walked up beside her, carefully sitting and laying the fish he had caught next to him. She grabbed his wrist and placed it against her belly. Inuyasha smiled. He knew exactly what he was doing as he felt the place under his hand shift. It felt awesome. He was happy that the child—_his _child—was so strong already. Although, as it moved it felt a little…

"It feels kinda weird," he commented, shaking his head.

Kagome chuckled slightly. "You should feel it from where I'm at."

After a few seconds more, the tiny being in her belly had stilled its movements, though Inuyasha could still hear the strong, quick heartbeat under Kagome's skin.

"He's settled down," Kagome commented, letting go of her husband's wrist.

"What makes you so sure it's a boy?"

"Just intuition. I mean, I was right about…"

Kagome's mind entered a dark place at the same time her husband's did. '_She was right about the last pregnancy,_' Inuyasha thought. Kagome had been happy about this pregnancy from the beginning, though Inuyasha had been wary of getting too excited. He knew, probably a week after she had conceived, that they were rolling down that road again, but he had been so hesitant to tell her that. She had come to _him_ at around six weeks, smiling, to tell him of her suspicions. Inuyasha had been supportive, and in truth, he _was_ happy they would get a second chance, but the sting of that first lost pregnancy—the baby girl—was still fresh in his mind.

"So," Kagome began, "I was starting to think about names." She giggled a bit, "I should probably include you in on the decision."

"Yeah, probably," he mumbled before he was entirely dragged away from his thoughts. When he finally found himself in the present, her words clicked.

"Names? Already?"

"Of course," she raised a confused brow.

"The kid ain't even born yet and you want to name 'em?"

"Well, it's never too early to start planning," she said, shrugging.

"I don't know…" his mind began to drift to darker reasons of why, before his continued with; "We don't have a clue of what their personality will be like, so it feels sorta weird to name them beforehand."

Kagome blinked. "Oh, yeah. I forgot that was more common in these times."

Inuyasha threw her a puzzled look. "In your time, people just named the kids anything? I mean, they picked the names out before they were born?"

"Yeah, I _guess_ you could put it that way. Some people name their kids with the hope they'd grow into those names."

"Hm…Alright. Well, I was given my name at birth, so I guess I can't judge."

"You were?"

Inuyasha stared off in a random direction, blushing. "Yeah. My…mother said dad took one look at my ears before deciding." He scowled slightly. He did not hate his name; it just had an unusual meaning.

"I think it's fitting."

Inuyasha looked back at his wife.

"What?"

"Your name," she paused, "It suits you."

Inuyasha raised a brow, needing her to elaborate.

"It means 'dog'—the first part—but it also means 'forest spirit' right?"

He nodded once.

"Well this—" she gestured in a random direction, "_is _your forest, technically. They've been calling it Inuyasha no Mori for decades now, and now that you protect the village from out here, they'll continue to call it that. Plus…" She blushed, "when I first found you, I wondered why a boy my age would just be alone in the woods like that. I thought that, maybe, you were a guardian spirit. Then, or course, I noticed your ears."

His ears twitched at their mention. He blushed, scoffed, and changed the subject.

"Well, so long as we don't name it something stupid, like…Sesshomaru, I'm pretty good."

Kagome's face scrunched up at the thought.

Inuyasha smirked at a memory suddenly.

"You know how Sesshomaru got his name?"

Kagome frowned. _'No. But you're more talkative than usual, so I guess I'm going to hear it anyways.'_

Inuyasha fixed up the fish for cooking quickly, and began to tell the story.

"All this is from Myoga, of course. He showed up a few days after Sesshomaru was born, and stuck around, since the home of a new father is probably the safest place in the world. Sesshomaru didn't have a name at first. Apparently, he was just as creepy of a baby as he is now, and he hardly cried. So his mother left him alone a lot. One day, when he was a few months old, she took him outside, and left him in his cradle for a while for whatever reason, and one of servant kids was looking at him. Well, Myoga says they all heard some pretty horrible screaming, and when they got to Sesshomaru, the servant kid was already dead. And there was Sesshomaru, in his cradle just as quiet as can be, covered in the kid's blood."

Kagome's mouth hung open in horror.

"And to top it all off, that was the very first time Myoga had ever seen him smile. The old flea decided right then to stay as far away from him as possible. Myoga said our dad was pretty shocked, but his mom…she was proud of freak and gave him the name Sesshomaru, because of it."

"That's horrible!" Kagome squeaked.

Inuyasha shook his head. "Have you met the guy?"

Kagome shook the image of an evil baby Sesshomaru from her mind. "Yeah, well, at least he's made a lot of progress since then."

Inuyasha snorted. "Don't give him so much credit."

"He has! He rarely insults you anymore, and he's so good with Rin. He saved your life on a couple of occasions too."

Inuyasha growled. "I wish you would stop reminding me of that."

Kagome smiled. "Well, it's true."

Inuyasha grumbled something under his breath and checked the fish. It was not quite done. He could eat it raw and be just fine, his hanyou body would kill off any parasites on its own, but he was not going to chance it for his pregnant wife.

"So, about these names, we should probably go through male and female names just in case your intuition is wrong. Because, hell, you can't possibly know for sure."

Kagome nodded. "I was actually starting to think about both names as well. Just in case."

* * *

...

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**This story correlates with at least one of my Post Manga oneshots, if you're confused/interested, check them out. However, I tried to make sure this story could stand on its own.**

Sesshomaru means well... It could mean a lot of things. It most directly translates to both "_cruel_" with the suffix "_maru_" for a man. Another direct translation would be a "_circle of killing_" or "_destruction of life_" But I think the meaning Takahashi said she prefers is "_Killing blade_" which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but I'll take it for what it's worth. Any of these translations/meanings seems like something pretty crazy to name your kid.

Back then, sometimes people would change their name given certain circumstances, like if a Samurai started working under a new Lord, or a certain achievement was attained then a man might change his name. Somehow, I don't feel like Sesshomaru picked his name out his own name. I just think it would be funny if one of his parents decided, "Yes, this name is perfect for my precious, chubby-cheeked baby boy...He's going to grow up to be a serial killer and make mama proud, I can just feel it":D

(Or when a woman left her father's household for her husband's, she might then be given a new name as well.)


	2. Izayoi

**Izayoi**

"We don't have to name the baby before it's born, you know. If you want to wait a little while, so see what they're like, that's honestly fine with me."

Inuyasha smiled.

Kagome thought for a second. As she recalled, Inuyasha actually had more significance to his name than just 'dog' and 'forest spirit'.

"Inuyasha. Izayoi… it means 'the sixteenth night' as in the sixteenth night of the lunar cycle, right?" she tried to keep her tone from letting on what she was thinking.

"Uh… yeah, I think you're right. She was probably born just after the full moon." Inuyasha had to think about it. It is not as if his mother had ever explained her own name to him. He had seen it written, and broken into parts so he could pronounce it from reading, but he had never asked how she got it. If Inuyasha had been born a human to his mother, he would have likely received attention from tutors—bastard child or no—but born the son of a demon, his mother was the only one to take on teaching him. She had taught him as much as she could in the few years he had with her, but years of disuse of the math and writing she taught him had caused those skills to deteriorate. Inuyasha could not remember many of the kanji his mother had taught him, but he could recall the few used in their names.

"Would a name like that be good, describing when they were born?"

"Not Ichiro. That would get confusing if Miroku and I ever got to talking about our sons."

Kagome nodded.

"So, tell me, Inuyasha," she grabbed an unused skewer and made her way over to the dirt part of their hut. She gestured for her husband to follow her and began drawing with the stick into the dirt.

"Your mother's name was written like this?" She scratched out the characters into the dirt.

Inuyasha affirmed with a nod.

"And your name?" She scratched out an intentional miswriting of his name.

"What? No, gimme that," he said, snatching the stick away from his wife. "We just talked about this a second ago," he scratched his name into the dirt. "_This_ is how you're supposed to write my name."

"Oh," Kagome said, acting surprised. By that point, Inuyasha knew something was up. Kagome took the stink back from him.

She drew a careful circle around the last character in Izayoi's name, "so, these two names," and a careful circle around the middle character in Inuyasha's name, "have the same character, here."

Inuyasha looked at the writing in the dirt. It was not news to him. When his mother was teaching him to write he had inquired about the characters in their names. He had not really understood at the time, but his mother would always quietly tell him how much his father had loved his mother, and how he made sure to carry over the character into Inuyasha's name. '_He understood, Inuyasha, that you were not just his son, but you are my son as well._' He responded by asking about his ears. '_That was the deciding factor about your name._' He knew his father must have been a clever person, though he would not learn until years later—after his mother's death, after Kikyo sealed him to the Goshinboku, after he met and fell in love with Kagome—just how clever he had been. He never asked the question often, when they moved onto new topics; the discussion of his name was forgotten.

Inuyasha's eyes drifted back to his wife's. She smiled warmly as she explained; "Izayoi is a lovely name, isn't it..? Don't you think it would be a fitting name for a little girl?"

Kagome was surprised by Inuyasha's sudden scowl. "Inuyasha?" He merely shook his head. Kagome could not tell what he was thinking, but she doubted it was good. She thought he would like the idea of naming a daughter after his mother. She thought the name was interesting as well, taking a character from Inuyasha's name for a daughter of theirs seemed like a good idea at the time. She opened her mouth to speak, but noting the slight shift in Inuyasha's expression, she kept quiet. He was still scowling, but the contemplative look gave her some hope about her idea. After nearly a minute, he rubbed his forehead and grumbled something Kagome did not quite catch.

"Inuyasha?"

He hesitated, tilting his head up to the ceiling.

"Why…would you want to name a kid after my mother?"

There was…almost a sadness in his tone.

Kagome could think of many reasons, but in that moment, she gave only one;

"I would want to name her that…with the hope she would live up to the name."

Inuyasha drew his eyes away from the ceiling quickly. He stared, wide-eyed at his wife, and absolutely amazed by her.

"From all that I've heard about her, she was a good mother, beautiful and a gentle soul—an amazing woman. I would hope our daughter would grow to be a kind and loving as she was."

Kagome grabbed his hand, lacing their fingers together. Inuyasha tried to think of something to say, but after a moment, he gave up and blushed, turning his head away. "Yeah."

* * *

...

* * *

We actually don't have a clue of what Inuyasha's mother's real name is, so I totally stole it from the third movie. I thought it was clever that they took a character from Inuyasha's name to pick out his mother's. The cleverness on the part of the writers I transposed to the cleverness of InuPapa instead. I'm well on board with the Headcanon (_though off because the films aren't canon_) that Inuyasha and Kagome would name their daughter Izayoi.

FYI, if you separate all three of the characters in Inuyasha's name, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since the middle character is one way of writing "_night_" and the third is basically nonsense. However, separated into two parts _Inu _and _yasha_ makes "_dog_" and an odd Chinese word for some sort of (perhaps forest) deity-similar the the Japanese translation of "_demon_" we're so familiar with if you're watching the English Dubs. Which makes slightly more sense. As Takahashi explains, it means that "He is a dog, but also a forest spirit" so I take the meaning as it was meant to be by fudging the transcription of the characters as "_dog_" and "_forest spirit_" in stead of "_dog_" and "_Chinese word for some sort of deity that may or may not reside in the forest because I'm way to lazy to actually research it_"


	3. Arashi

**Arashi**

Kagome was weary from another day as a mother to a difficult newborn. Since he had been born, both of the infant's parents were strung out from lack of sleep, and when they were not at each other's throats, Kagome was stifling her tearless sobs into Inuyasha's chest. Inuyasha spent most of that time with only one free hand to hold his wife, the other placed firmly against his temple, trying to ease his headache. They loved their baby—true—but they were not as fond of being parents as they thought they would have been.

"Well," Inuyasha whispered as his wife came outside to join him. She had finally gotten the baby to sleep, and they would rather not wake him. "I don't think it's colic."

Kagome rubbed her own temple. "Inuyasha, if it's not colic, what is it?"

With the cries of the infant gone for the moment, Inuyasha's headache had subsided enough for him to think clearly. "I think he's just _really _fussy, is all."

"Fussy? He is not _just_ fussy!" Kagome snapped.

"Hey, hey," he rubbed down his wife's arms. "I know. Okay…we're both tired, if we fight we'll only feel worse."

Kagome groaned, dipping her head forward onto her husband's shoulder. "Since when do you know how to make sense?" She mumbled.

"You said if it was colic it wouldn't start in until he was a few weeks old. Well, he's been like this since he was born, and his cries aren't right either. I don't think he's uncomfortable, I think he's just pissed about this whole experience."

Kagome groaned again. He began to stroke her hair, but paused suddenly.

"Do you hear that?" He whispered as quietly as possible.

Kagome's eyes snapped open.

"Inuyasha? What is it?"

He took a long pause before continuing.

"Silence…which means we have about two hours to get some sleep."

Kagome nodded and pulled away from her husband. She pushed open the screen and looked in on her sleeping son. Other than the white hair, he looked more like Kagome. She had hoped their children would have inherited their father's ears, but if she was lucky, those ears were not sensitive to pick up all the whispering as he slept. Inuyasha soon followed his wife in with a smile on his lips.

"I love the kid, but my ears are so thankful when he's quiet."

Kagome crossed her arms, shaking her head.

"We both know it's just the calm before the storm," and she paused on that. A few seconds passed before a smile graced her lips.

"A storm…"

Inuyasha raised an eyebrow briefly.

"His name," Kagome continued, "wasn't 'Arashi' on that list we thought of..?"

Inuyasha tilted his head slightly.

"Arashi…if he grows up to be anything like his dad—which I suspect he will—wouldn't Arashi be a fitting name?"

"Arashi? Are you sure, Kagome?"

"I think it's a good name," she insisted.

Inuyasha rolled it around in his mind, measuring out the syllables, thinking over the context of the name…he tried thinking of any other names he would rather give the child. '_No, nothing comes to mind,_' he thought. He would have to learn to write it, he was sure Kagome knew how, but he felt a little bad about not knowing how to write the name himself. He would save that thought for later as he responded after a few seconds.

"Yeah. I think it works."

Kagome nodded and held Inuyasha's hand as they went to lie on either side of their napping infant. Kagome fell asleep right away, not even bothering to cover up, so Inuyasha made sure the covers were snug around both sleeping wife and newborn son. The baby stirred ever so slightly when Inuyasha did that, and the father fretted waking the infant. The baby relaxed as his father petted his white hair, and whispered to him.

"_Arashi, Arashi, go back to sleep, little one_."

To the surprise of the new parents, when the baby awoke and demanded food, nearly four hours had passed. When he pulled away from Kagome, after he had finished his meal, to their further surprise, he did not start loudly crying again. He looked up at his two caretakers with large, unfocused brown eyes. His parents looked back down at him with confusion and wonder at the change in demeanor.

After about a week Kagome determined that—while still quite fussy—Arashi's sole focus in life did not seem to be driving his parents crazy, and both Kagome and husband were able to get a little more sleep. While Kagome was feeding him one morning, Inuyasha threw an idea out there.

"What if he just wanted a name?"

Kagome rolled her eyes at the idea but stroked Arashi's face with her thumb and asked softly;

"Is that why you were giving me and daddy a hard time, huh? You wanted a name, little Arashi?"

Arashi pulled away from Kagome, frustrated at being distracted from his meal. He made an annoyed whimper that was so close to a puppy's, Kagome could not help but coo over the sound as the baby went back to nursing.

Inuyasha slapped a hand over his face in embarrassment. The ability to produce that noise could have only come from one of the two parents.

"I didn't hear that," Inuyasha said, eyes wide, staring at the ceiling.

Kagome giggled, knowing exactly what was on his mind. "But it's so cute. I always loved when his daddy made cute sounds like that," she said, looking back at her husband. Her husband had no trouble living up to the first part of his namesake, even if he hated admitting it. His hand dropped away from his face as his cheeks flamed up.

"When have I ever made that noise?!"

Kagome smirked.

"Not that one, but let's see…I've heard you bark when you're annoyed, growl when you're irritated—"

"Okay, stop!" The new father interrupted. He had known he let out a growl here and there, but he did not expect Kagome to remember those times.

Kagome waited a whole three seconds before continuing, "I'm just glad to see he's a little more like his daddy than I thought."

Inuyasha fought to keep a smile off his face, but he did not last long.

Kagome meant that. She was happy that the child _they_ created was showing more equivalent traits of the _both _of them. The brown eyes, round ears, blunt nails—all of those belonged to Kagome—the white hair was all that seemed to pass onto little Arashi. If those little dog sounds were passed on as well…it was just too cute to bear.

When his teeth came in, Kagome was happy—as well as a little worried, since he was still nursing—that little fangs grew in to match his father's. As the years started to grow, he was soon living up to his namesake. He turned into a rowdy little boy, always messy, always wanting to play, and always, _always _causing one problem or another for his parents. Nevertheless, the young parents honestly loved every minute of it…except the minutes they spent apologizing to villagers for the little one causing a ruckus somewhere.

* * *

...

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Also, I find it funny that both Yamaguchi and Cox chose to ad-lib "barks" into the dubbing at various points in the series. Obviously the sound isn't very close to an actual dog's bark, more of a "ruff!" with Cox, at least, but it's very surprising. Watching the series with friends at age 13, we rewound that DVD and laughed at the noises so many times during one episode it had us rolling on the floor. (We might have also had too much sugar) I can really only speak for Cox, but he's an excellent voice-actor even if he's not the friendliest guy in life.

The name "**Arashi**" as it's written in a single Kanji(?) just literally means "_storm_". To me, it sounds similar to Inuyasha's name, and even a little bit of Kagome's. If he grows up to be anything like his father, then it would be a fitting name. However, another writing of the name Arashi can mean "_a new story_" which I think is beautiful too-it would be like opening up a new chapter of Inuyasha and Kagome's life-them as parents.

On a sidenote, can you just imagine Inuyasha playing with his young son, at like 5 years old? Or even before then, teaching him how to jump really high, and land properly so he doesn't hurt himself? Or tucking him under his arm and holding him still when he's misbehaving? Awwwwww... I just can't, it's so cute, I really want this, (hah).


End file.
